Photoshop CS2 HDR

Photoshop CS2 HDR

A couple of years ago I saw an article on how to use Photoshop and exposure bracketing to create composite images that had good detail in both highlights and shadows. The article explained that digital had a smaller dynamic range than film, and that even film didn't have the range to cover some landscape scenes.

By the time I was done reading I had the impression that the author, Michael Reichmann, would be pleased if he didn't have to compress the dynamic range, but instead had a way to combine two images of 8-bit depth into a single image having, say, a 12-bit range.

Sure enough, the new Photoshop release can do it. And the same author has posted an article on how to use it:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/hdr.shtml

Naturally, now the problem is that neither computer monitors nor printers can handle 32-bit image data. And at the end of this article Mr. Reichmann suggests that camera manufacturers need to begin producing cameras that provide better control over exposure increments when producing bracketed shots.

But why stop there? Why not let the camera do its own sampling of light levels across the scene and then automatically produce bracketed shots which cover the scene's entire dynamic range?

Even better, why not perform the bracketing and merge in-camera, producing a final, high-dynamic range image with no effort on the part of the lazy photographer? (Me.) I can think of only three reasons: processing power, battery power and memory :)